Dear Jonas Timple,
Where are you when I need you?? I'll get right to it. The treatment I get from the women on this floor is driving me bat-guano insane. I just don’t understand WHAT I’ve done to be treated so rudely. If anything, perhaps I’ve been too shy. Maybe I should have dropped off a tin of cookies at each of their desks with a friendly note for the holiday season (even if I know they'd never touch them). Perhaps I could have shown more chutzpah when I first started working here by walking up to each of their cubicles, extending my right hand, and welcoming myself to their floor on their lazy behalf. Or maybe I could smile more when I type.
Whatever the case, I'm about to lose my Cheese Whiz, and I need your help...
Remember that one girl I told you about? The one I’ve always been nice to and tried to talk to...even going so far as to say her hair looked nice when, in fact, she resembled a cross between Janis from "The Muppets" and Corky from "Life Goes On"? Well, she topped herself this morning by going OUT OF HER WAY to shower me in ice crystals.
One of my colleagues was here giving me an assignment. She saw him, walked directly to my desk, leaned over it without acknowledging my presence (which was a mere two inches from her mammaries), and wished him a Happy New Year as if she was the sweetest and most angelic fawn in the fairytale kingdom. She then lowered her ski-jump chin and smirked at me before walking back to her desk.
It was so unabashedly rude that I could not help but shoot daggers of negativity into her soul which, I believe, contributed to her tripping and almost falling down as she walked away. I'm trying to turn a new leaf this year, Jonas, but whatever. You’ve been served, Ice Queen!
To go hand and hand with this incident, something else happened just moments ago. There are new people working up here this week. As they were given a tour of our floor, I heard them ask who I was. Well, one of the Furies giving the tour (the one who works near me and eats peanuts all day while listening to house music on her iPod) didn’t even acknowledge the question; HOWEVER, she walked RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY DESK, stopped, and then pointed out my boss’s office just to the left of my face.
Jonas, am I in the Twilight Zone? Am I on Candid Camera? I feel like Ugly Betty up in here. I’m a nice person, Jo Jo. I’m easy to talk to. Sheesh, I've TRIED talking to these ladies. I’ve even heard them talking about subjects I know a bit about and could discuss animatedly with them on any given occasion (things like Brad Pitt, ordering Indian takeout, and using a curling iron rather than a flat iron). I even know how to drop the word "AMAZING!" into every other sentence of a conversation. With the exception of the Ice Queen, who usually smells of cocoa butter and sometimes looks as though she’s been styled by Debbie Gibson, I’m sure we'd all really get along. Why is it so dang hard for them to just be friendly, Jonesie?
I know you experienced similar issues on the 9th floor when you used to work here (WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME??), so don't you agree that there's something weird in the air here? Perhaps it’s all of the wood and tapestry. I don’t know. Geezus. WHAT DO I DO? Just. What. Do. I. DO. I'm either going to chew my foot off or spit in the coffee pot.
Listen to me. I'm trying to flush negativity from my being in 2007 (hey, Happy New Year!), but it's hard, you know? I can tell you this: I’m will not give up, Jonas Sherman Timple. I will smile and I will continue saying hello to dead air and I will wave even though I know that single, mighty wave will be returned with two blinks of mascara and the crossing of one stiletto leg over the other. I will fight the good fight, and I will win.
Oh my Gosh. One of the new people just said hi to me. SHE SAID HI TO ME!!!! I have to go and throw out the coffee.
Yours,
"Betty" Shinkus
p.s. Wanna have a Jack and Coke after work?
